The Four Archetypal Relational Fields: Field Four

    
Ring: Previous | Next

Field Four: The Numinous Field of the Transcendent Function

Image by Eric Cheng

Sometimes, Field Three leads us into Field Four (O’Connell, 1986), The Numinous Field, the heart of the transcendent function. The essence of Field Four is a dramatic shift in attitude accompanied by a sense of awe and the constellation of the Self that is so familiar to Jungian sandplay therapists. Field Four is a shared, transcendent, relational experience of the union of conscious and unconscious, and it is an experience completely void of anxiety. In the diagram below, the Field Four area is the outer layer of the Self In Relationship circle. This represents an ever present, numinous psychic holding. The therapeutic goal, within this timeless container of shared psychic experience, is to gradually move into embodied, emotionally connected self-reflection, and to establish fluid oscillation between all four fields. Field Four is the ever present, numinous container.
   

Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---

Theoretical Understanding of the Sandplay Process

Ring: Previous | Next

Relational sandplay therapy embraces all of these Kalffian theoretical principles:

Unconscious processes are expressed in concrete, visible form.

“Energies in the form of ‘living symbols’ are touched upon in the personal and collective unconscious, and healing then happens spontaneously at the unconscious level” (Lauren Cunningham, 2004).

Contact with archetypal energies results in a change in relationship between inner and outer worlds. There is then a return to a more integrated state.

The Jungian individuation process leading to Wholeness is visible in sandplay.

Neumann’s stages of development are foundational.

The freeing up of blocked psychic energy may be visible in the tray.

Sandplay facilitates a regression to the mother-infant unity and healing on the matriarchal level of consciousness.

The recovery of the Feminine is profoundly healing.

Play is the mediator between conscious and unconscious and the avenue to the expression of preverbal material.

Healing is implicit in the union of opposites and the transcendent function.

The constellation/manifestation of the Self, “this inner order, this pattern of wholeness” (Kalff, 2005, p.6) is the most important moment in development of the personality and in healing.

The relativization of the ego to the Self is crucial.

The clinician holds a developmental perspective of any given series of trays (Rogers & Mitchell, 1994).

The transference may be recognizable in the sandplay itself.

This is an excerpt from an article that appeared in The Journal of Sandplay Therapy, Volume XVI, Number 2, 2007: But is it Kalffian? by Linda Cunningham

Ring: Previous | Next

---

Please visit www.SandplayTrainingWorldwide.com for full current information and to register for training.

Thank you for visiting Relational Sandplay Therapy. 

---